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Tuscany Where Life Is Really Lived
Our love affair of Tuscany started 40 years ago when, as part of our great OE (overseas experience) we taught for a year in Livorno and were thrown in at the deep-end of Italian life. We didn’t speak a word of Italian, but, as Livorno doesn’t have many non-Italian tourists, we had to learn the language quickly, or we would have starved! This non-tourist aspect of the city meant that we had to become “Italians” quickly italian and this made all the difference.
Carla, our lovely secretary, who was our fount of wisdom, Claudio and Michaela who introduced us to their circle of young friends, the neighbours in the next door apartment who we regularly thought were murdering each other, but then were full of love and kisses the next day, Mr Dilagi who as a private student would regularly treat us to the center of a virgin Parmigana cheese, the long drawn out dinners when our students would treat us to a feast at some of the great restaurants, the academics at the Nuclear Institute at the University of Pisa who I took for weekly conversation lessons who were so friendly, Mrs X who had to lie down to pull on her skinny jeans - they were so tight, the farm barn converted to a restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights that served only dishes made with wild game, the ever charming Carabineiri in their spectacular uniforms who my wife taught who allowed us to shop at their PX, the passeggiata along the waterfront on a Sunday afternoon and the freezing cheeks on the brisk walk to work when the tramontane was blowing.
We have returned a couple of times since then. The last was a year ago when we spent some time in Cortona – the quintessential Tuscan town. It brought back so many memories of Italian life. Afternoons spent on the steps of the church in Piazza Repubblica watching the passing show, the lovely woman in the fresh pasta shop who insisted on the appropriate sauce for a particular pasta, the little café we went to each morning into which a man walked in everyday at 8.00am on the dot, walked silently up to the counter, was given a tumbler of red wine, polished it off in one long swig, and walked out – with not a word being spoken, the innumerable little alleyways just begging one to see what they contained, the subterranean vegetable shop just off the main piazza with only perfect produce on sale (of course, no self respecting Italian will accept anything less), a bottle of Orvieto Classico at the little Despar for only 2 euros, the archetypical smooth operator,Simone who covered up his mistake with our booking with panache by upgrading us to a better apartment than we had booked.
We have travelled to and lived in many parts of the world, but our heart lies in the jewel of Italy - Toscana
